


After Hours with the Moon

by Acaeria



Category: Warriors - Erin Hunter
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Canonical Character Death, Child Abuse, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Gen, Physical Abuse, Self-Harm, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-09
Updated: 2015-05-09
Packaged: 2018-03-29 17:44:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3905206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Acaeria/pseuds/Acaeria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ivypool hates the world, but she's not the only one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	After Hours with the Moon

**Author's Note:**

> I had the sudden urge to write a werewolf au for something, and this came out of it. enjoy xx

The forest is scary at night.

Ivypool’s breath rasps in her chest. She hates this. She hates the dark that makes every tree look like monsters and the wind that whips against her skin, turning her blood to ice. She hates the way tree branches appear out of nowhere and cause blood to well up in the holes left behind in her skin. She hates the way tears sting her eyes and trail down her face, salt lacing her lips and blinding her view.

Her footsteps slow and falter; her breath grows louder and more uneven, her lungs heaving for air. The footsteps behind her grew louder and louder, somehow managing to drown out the pounding of her own heart.

Something slams into her back and everything goes dark.

 

 

She’s in a field when she opens her eyes.

The sun is shining, the grass is blowing, wildlife is blooming. Her head is pounding and her vision is strange, but she cannot figure out what is wrong.

She gets to her paws and looks around, sniffing at the air. There’s a scent here; someone crouching behind the grass, watching her with sharp eyes and a crooked smile. She turns toward it, growling, ears flying back.

From his hiding place he rises, dark and brawny with scars crisscrossing his skin like lines on a map. He laughs at her, and she finds herself perking up slightly, curious and uncertain. She looks into his eyes; a cold icy blue that seemed to stare into her soul.

Instantly, she feels at home.

 

 

“Ivypool! Ivypool wake up!”

Ivypool’s eyes snap open, and the gasp tears from her chest with the force of a runaway train. She’s disoriented, lifting her head in confusion and blinking in the morning light. In the doorway, there’s a face; she thinks it’s Dovewing but she can’t be sure of anything right now. Either way, it raises and eyebrow and looks at her in concern.

“Your friends are here,” says her sister’s voice, and the person disappears.

Ivypool lets her head drop to the pillow, staring up at the ceiling of her room. It’s white and airy, nice and clean, the way she likes it.

She looks down at her body, at her rumpled clothes, her tousled hair, the cuts on her arms. She wonders, how did I get home?

She holds up her hand to the light, clenching and unclenching her fingers, as if looking for an answer in the lines of her palm.

She doesn’t find one.

 

 

Ivypool and Dovewing have a very small group of friends, and they are as follows:

Bumblestripe, a tall gangly boy with messy hair and bright eyes, tells stupid puns and never knows how to take a hint. Madly in love with Dovewing, but don’t tell either of them (they don’t know it yet).

Blossomfall, who was also tall and messy, with a pretty face and a cold voice. She never smiles with her eyes (Ivypool’s never asked why. She isn’t sure she wants to know).

Briarlight, who was small and cute, and in love with the world.

Whilst sitting with them, Ivypool feels restless. Her blood rushes through her veins the way she wishes she could rush through the world. She wants to get up and run, through the forest, find the owner of the icy blue eyes.

She watches the sun set and her blue eyes turn to gold.

 

 

A month passes by before she sees him again, after dark in the forest. He teaches her to defend herself against the shadow-monsters, and how to find tiny creatures in the darkness. He teaches her his path, and helps her follow in his pawsteps.

She breathes in his scent and falls in love.

 

 

It’s not too long before she sees him again.

She’s capping off because she can’t stand school, and she sees him in the street. It’s his eyes that lead her to recognising him, and he smiles at her knowingly. He beckons her, and they have lunch together in a little tea shop in a back alley, far out of sight.

He’s kind to her, and his words are syrupy sweet, but there’s danger underneath, and every time he smiles she sees his fangs. It’s exhilarating, and she wants to be like him. She wants to wear a mask of politeness and be fearless underneath.

She wants to be strong.

She pours this out to him, the words cascading from her lips like water from the falls. He sips his coffee before nodding and agreeing; he welcomes her to his family, his pack, and her heart warms with happiness because she’s never had a place to belong before.

He watches her with calculating eyes and she doesn’t care, because she’s head-over-heels in love with a world she knows nothing about, and completely engrossed in him.

 

 

They hurt her there but she doesn’t care.

They come at her with knives and claws, bared teeth and fangs, cutting into her skin and her pelt. They pull her hair and so she cuts it short. When her mother sees this she cries, but Ivypool doesn’t care.

She almost dies one night but she doesn’t care because her pack loves her more than her parents and her sister and her friends ever will.

...Right?

 

 

Dovewing’s been making friends with older kids, college students. They’ve been helping her with her homework, boosting her grades, introducing her to big people, high-up people, and Dovewing leaves Ivypool behind without a second thought.

Ivypool doesn’t stay long to breathe in the dust; her visits home become less frequent and shorter. She’ll stay with one of the pack, or sleep out in the forest. It doesn’t bother her as much as it used to.

Her mother is worried. She stares at her with tears in her eyes but Ivypool just puts up the finger and refuses to talk. She skips dinner and steals her father’s liquor instead. It tastes like dying stars and burns her throat but she doesn’t mind it too much.

She shows up at Hawkfrost’s apartment absolutely hammered, and wakes up the next morning with the biggest hangover she’s ever had. The whole time he strokes her hair and rubs her back and whispers soothing things into her ear.

Ivypool feels smug, and enjoys the feeling of having him all to herself.

 

 

Ivypool gets a phone call from her sister one day whilst out with the pack.

She declines the call and switches it off, shoving it back in her pocket. It would be the same discussion they always have, no doubt, and Ivypool really does not have the patience to listen to her sister begging her to come home.

Two days later she arrives back at the house, only to find her sister screaming at her. Briarlight been in the hospital, she reveals, and Ivypool’s been ignoring every single call. The fight involves everyone in the house, and eventually Ivypool gets sick of it and runs.

She stops by the hospital and leaves Briarlight a small box of chocolates with the word _sorry_ scrawled on top.

 

 

When Ivypool first joined the pack there were very few girls in its ranks- just Sparrowfeather and Mapleshade. Mapleshade was old, easily in her forties, and too violent and grouchy for anyone to like her. Sparrowfeather’s younger, but she’s snobbish and annoying and nobody really cares about her.

Now, though, there are more of them- Applefur and Sunstrike and Icewing and Minnowtail. Ivypool’s friends with them; they go to her school and they’re nice to her. She begins to drift away from her sister’s friends, and ignores their gazes boring into her back.

These days she wears a lot more black. She spends far too much time locked in her room, listening to music and drowning out the wall. When Whitewing grounds her, she climbs out the window and doesn’t come back for a week. She thinks it’ll show them.

She wonders if they’ll even notice she’s gone.

 

 

One night Sparrowfeather’s claws almost blind her and Ivypool’s eyes are opened for the first time.

In her packmates she doesn’t see friends and family; she sees dangerous, wild animals, ready to tear her limb from limb. Terrified, she runs.

She doesn’t ever want to come back.

 

 

Dovewing knows.

She’s known for a while, she says; her older friends are hunters, trying to hunt down the pack and either cure or kill them. They say they’ll cure her if she wants it.

She doesn’t know. Her heart longs to be set free from this curse, but at the same time she’ll die without it. They decide on a compromise: they’ll leave her alone if she keeps an eye on the pack for her.

After a week of constant anxiety and paranoia, she returns to the pack and tries to pretend she never left, all the time feeling sick to her stomach.

 

 

More people join the pack, and Ivypool begins to isolate herself from them. She doesn’t find being with the pack enjoyable anymore, dread clawing at her stomach whenever they’re around. She feels sick when they touch her, and becomes angrier and more violent than she’s ever been.

She doesn’t care.

Until one day, she does.

She cares when she sees familiar auburn hair at a gathering, and looks into the familiar green eyes of her old friend. Blossomfall is different now; she’s harder and colder, and she hates the world. Ivypool takes it upon herself to protect her friend, and so she begins to notice things. The bruises on her skin and the scars on her wrists, the way she flinches at every touch and loud noise. The way she is far too ravenous when they go out for lunch, and far too thin to be healthy.

When she finally tells Ivypool about her mother’s anger and neglect, Ivypool isn’t surprised. She isn’t even apologetic. She wants to tear Millie’s head from her shoulders, but of course she can’t do that.

So she changes the subject quickly and ignores the tears in Blossomfall’s eyes.

 

 

Several months later, she kills another pack member.

They say if she does it, she’ll get privileges she never had before. And when it’s done, and she’s shaking and covered in blood and struggling to keep a straight face, Hawkfrost comes and loops an arm around her, smiling and whispering in her ear.

He says he’s proud of her.

He says he loves her more than anything.

She takes a deep breath and bites back a scream.

_I want to die._

 

 

Years go by and finally they’re all gone; the last pack member dead at their feet. Ivypool watches Tigerstar’s body slowly fade away to ash; by all rights, he should have died long ago.

There are others, others that have repented, others that have been cured. She wonders where they are now; holed up somewhere no doubt, waiting for this final fight to end, and to discover their fate.

Tears stream from her eyes and her sister holds her as she sobs uncontrollably. She tries to comfort, but her words are empty. She says they’ll cure her, it’s all over now, it’s okay.

But it’s not.

 

 

Ivypool looks around her room. There’s a note on the desk, apologising for everything that happened. With a long sigh she heaves her bag onto her shoulder and climbs from her window for the last time.

Down in the street, Breezepelt and Blossomfall are waiting for her. They no longer smell the same; their wolfish scents drained away by the magic the hunters possessed. Ivypool is hit by some emotion; loneliness, perhaps? But then they smile at her, and it fades away.

“Let’s go,” she says.

The three of them disappear into the night.

**Author's Note:**

> I'll probably write a sequel, and change the style- less of an overview and more of an actual plot? what do you guys think?


End file.
